Poisoned Honey: A Story of Mary Magdalene (13 page)

The Egyptian went through her motions of gazing upward, raising the scroll, and unrolling the parchment. “It is written: ‘Lo, the iron bars will melt away, and the prison door will gape open. Trust, and the way out will be revealed to you.’”

Ramla’s bird companion cocked its head to look at us with one pale eye and then the other. “Ramla has spoken,” it said.

The way out? A way out for me? I didn’t really believe it,
but I felt a painful surge of hope. To hide my feelings, I bowed my face over my cup.

After giving each guest a reading, Ramla offered amulets for sale, and some of the women bought them. They were small pouches of colored linen, strung on cords and smelling of herbs. “Nothing the Jewish elders could disapprove of,” Ramla assured us. “No graven images or unclean ingredients. This one protects against fevers. This one ties an unfriendly tongue. This one prevents accidents by fire.” I thought the one to tie an unfriendly tongue would be useful against Chava, but I had no money.

Then it was time to leave, and each woman presented Ramla with a gift: a dish of stuffed dates, a carved and painted comb, a little jar of scented oil. I waited until the others were gone to give her my gift, a string of crocheted flowers. “Thank you,” croaked the bird, and leaned from her shoulder to accept my flowers with its beak.

The Egyptian woman nodded a gracious dismissal to me, but I didn’t go. No one could hear us, since Susannah and her departing guests were down in the courtyard. I blurted out my question: “Is there truly a way out for me? How long do I have to wait?”

Ramla gazed at me with a puzzled frown. “Ah yes. You’re … Mariamne?” She smoothed back a lock of hair
that had escaped from her headdress. Her expression, too, smoothed into one of dignity. “I cannot answer your question, how long,” she intoned, “but I can help you bear the time of waiting.” As she spoke, her Egyptian accent thickened. “I will teach you a charm so that you can slip into the spirit world now and then, and come back refreshed and rested.”

I felt a chill. “Into the … spirit world?” It was one thing to listen to a wise woman but quite another to cast a charm myself.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Ramla answered. “It’s only as if you discovered a private garden, a place you can steal off to from time to time. No one else can see it, no one else can know about it.”

This wasn’t what I wanted, but at least it was something. I nodded. “What is the charm?”

First, Ramla instructed, I must close my eyes and breathe slowly until I feel calm. If troubling thoughts come to me, brush them away. “Then, to get into the spirit world, say ‘
Abrasax
, I enter.’ You will step through a doorway into a garden, the loveliest garden you can imagine.”

“Abrasax,” I
repeated.

“And when you wish to leave the garden,” Ramla went on, “you will say ‘
Abrasax
, I leave.’ You will open your eyes, and you will find yourself back in this world.”

“That’s all there is to it?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Ramla. She yawned as she spoke, and I saw that two of her teeth were missing. I hadn’t thought of Ramla as being any particular age, but she must have been as old as my mother. “Now I go to rest and restore my powers.”

On my way home, I thought over the words from the scroll. What way out of my cage could there be, other than Eleazar’s death? But that solution couldn’t be “revealed” to me, because I’d already thought of it. I supposed it would make my plight less miserable if Chava died, but that wasn’t the same as escape.

A grim thought struck me: I might die myself. That would be a way out, all right, a nasty fulfillment of Ramla’s prophecy.

By the time I walked back into Eleazar’s courtyard, my pleasure in the afternoon had dissolved like morning mist from the lake. Chava and the other women were there, watching and criticizing everything I did. That night, although I had the bed to myself, I was tempted by Ramla’s idea of a hidden garden.

As Ramla had told me, I closed my eyes. I let my breath slowly in … slowly out. Slowly in … slowly out. Thoughts swam through my mind like fish, nibbling at me: Had Susannah told her other guests how unhappy I was? Would the
elders of Magdala disapprove of what I was doing? Pronouncing magical words by myself seemed like crossing a line, a line maybe as important as the one between a maiden and a married woman.

I brushed the thoughts away. Slowly breathe in … slowly breathe out. Gradually I felt that I was floating free. I whispered, “
Abrasax
, I enter.”

Immediately an archway appeared in my mind’s eye. It was like the entrance to the
mikvah
, only the steps leading down were white marble. And the space I glimpsed beyond was not dark but sunny. It was frighteningly real.

“
Abrasax
, I leave!” I gabbled, and my eyes flew open in the dark. My heart tripped. There
was
a private garden, and who knew what else, in the spirit world. I felt that I’d made a narrow escape.

The next day, Eleazar returned, and that night it was bitter medicine as usual. I was tempted to say the charm again, but I had promised myself that I would not. I sensed danger. Was it the danger of being discovered practicing magic, or of the hidden garden itself? I wasn’t sure, but I was afraid.

I thought I would only do the slow breathing, clearing my mind and letting myself float. Surely there was no harm in that much. Breathe slowly in … slowly out. By the time I was calmed and drifting, the magical words didn’t seem so dangerous. “
Abrasax
, I enter.”

My foot seemed to meet the cool marble step, and I felt a jasmine-scented breeze on my face.

No, I must not go there!
Again I was frightened, as if I’d walked right to the edge of a cliff. “
Abrasax
, I leave.”

By the time three days had passed, I felt myself back in the cage. I longed desperately to be with my grandmother, who would simply give me loving looks and speak kind words. Putting on my head scarf, I picked up a basket and told Chava, “We need fresh herbs. I’m going out the west gate to gather them.”

Chava looked sincerely shocked. “Outside the town by yourself? Unheard of!” She added grudgingly, “If we really need herbs, we’ll all go together when Daphne arrives this afternoon.”

“No. I’m going now.” I paused just long enough to make up a plausible lie. “I’m not going alone. Susannah is going, too.”

On my way through the alley to the avenue, I wondered if I should change my mind—if I should actually go to Susannah’s house. I knew I was risking trouble, deliberately disobeying my husband. But I was ashamed to have Susannah see me in such a pitiable state.

When I stepped into the familiar courtyard a short while later, the first thing I saw was Chloe sitting with another girl. Their heads were together, and they were laughing about something.

“Shalom
, Mari!” exclaimed Chloe. She jumped up and kissed me. “Look, this is Sarah, Alexandros’s betrothed. She’s come to live with us.” The other girl smiled shyly at me.

So this was my brother’s bride-to-be, paid for with my marriage to Eleazar. I managed to say,
“Shalom
, Sarah.”

“Who’s there, Chloe?” called my mother from the rooftop. She started down the stairs, with Safta following more slowly. Halfway down, my mother caught sight of me and halted. “Mariamne. What are you doing here?”

That was not a welcoming question, and I couldn’t answer. Imma hurried down to the courtyard, took my arm, and pulled me aside. “You mustn’t come here again,” she whispered.

“What do you mean—I’m not welcome in my own home?” I tried to speak calmly, but my voice came out in a wail.

“Not for now, at least.” She sighed heavily. “Mariamne, get it through your head that your home is your husband’s home. Eleazar has spoken to your uncle Reuben, and Reuben has spoken to Alexandros, and Alexandros told me: Your husband does not wish you to keep coming back here. He says you’re neglecting your duties. He says you quarrel with the other women in his household.”

“That’s not true!” I exclaimed.
“They’re
unfriendly to
me
.
Eleazar must have heard those lies from Chava, and that woman hates me! She—”

“Go … now!” My mother spoke sharply and gave me a little push toward the gate.

But I turned aside instead, falling into my grandmother’s arms. “Safta, Safta!”

My grandmother felt scrawnier than I remembered, but she patted my back and murmured, “There, there, little bird.” Ah, her sweet voice! This was what I had come for.

Closing my eyes, I felt for a moment like a much younger girl. Plaintive words came out of my mouth, as if I really were a forlorn child: “Safta, do you like Sarah better than you like me?”

My grandmother pulled back, looking bewildered, and she had me repeat my question. Then she said, “You mean my aunt Sarah? No, I can’t say I liked her very well, may her soul rest in peace.”

I smiled meanly to myself, pleased that my grandmother didn’t even know who the new Sarah was. But then Safta went on, “I’ll tell you who I do like—that nice girl Mari.” She nodded toward the bench where Sarah sat with Chloe. “She came to live with us. They say she’s betrothed to Alexandros.”

Business was brisk at the tollgate, and the strongbox where Matthew kept the toll money filled quickly. If he didn’t think too much about how he’d gotten all that money, it was very satisfying. Matthew was proud, too, that he had servants doing his bidding at home and guards following his orders at the tollgate. And the house he lived in, though it was only rented, was finer than his father’s house.

On the first Sabbath morning, Matthew decided to leave the leader of the guards in charge of taking the tolls. The man didn’t have Matthew’s expertise in judging merchandise, but there would be less traffic than usual. Only Gentiles traveled on the holy day.

Matthew walked downhill to the synagogue in Capernaum. It was easy to see, he thought as he neared the village,
that none of that river of wealth on the highway trickled down into Capernaum. Most of the houses were humble one-room huts, and there were none of the spacious compounds such as those owned by the prosperous families of Magdala. The Jews of Capernaum had little to do with highway commerce; they were fishermen and small farmers. Travelers on the highway didn’t seek lodging in Capernaum but went on to the caravan stops and inns at Magdala or Tiberias.

Matthew found the Jewish assembly in Capernaum under an open-sided shed near the shore. They must be too poor to have a proper synagogue hall, he thought. Perhaps he could help pay to have one built—the idea pleased him. In Capernaum, he realized, he would be one of the more well-to-do members of the assembly.

But as Matthew stepped onto the black stone floor, a circle of empty space appeared around him. Rough-clad laborers, who must have had to take their Sabbath-eve baths in the lake, pulled their coats aside to keep from touching him. How did they know who he was?

Matthew realized that some of the men looked familiar although their faces were shaded by prayer shawls. They must be the fishermen he’d tried to hire. And then there was a cluster of beggars on the edge of the assembly, some of the same ones as at the tollgate. There was his answer.

Matthew realized that day that Capernaum was a
completely Jewish village; there was no section of Syrians and Phoenicians as in Magdala. On the streets of Magdala, there had always been someone to give Matthew a courteous greeting, even if it was only because they were afraid of his father. But when Matthew walked through Capernaum, no one so much as nodded to him. Women turned their heads and crossed to the other side of the street, and men didn’t wait until his back was turned to spit. Even the Jewish beggars dropped their outstretched hands when they saw him coming; they didn’t want his filthy money.

Matthew could have traveled to Bethsaida-Julias for Sabbath prayer meetings, but he stubbornly kept coming to Capernaum every week. Wasn’t it his right, as a Jew? After all, he kept many parts of the Law. He didn’t associate with Romans, except on business. He kept the dietary laws, and he didn’t eat with Gentiles. He didn’t work on the Sabbath.

The other Jews didn’t try to stop Matthew from entering the synagogue, but they always left an empty circle around him. When the shed was full, they’d rather suffer in the noonday sun than stand next to Matthew in the shade of the thatched roof.

One especially hot Sabbath, Matthew noticed in the middle of a reading that an old man was looking unwell. He’d been in the shade at the beginning of the service, although
keeping a careful distance from Matthew, but now the sun beat down on his head. Matthew thought he’d wait until the reading of the prophecy was over and then let the man have his place. But in the next moment, the old man crumpled to the ground, his face as gray as his beard.

The old man’s relatives carried him out, looking at Matthew with loathing. “Wait till Simon returns,” one of them muttered. “He’ll get rid of the …” The voice trailed off, but Matthew could imagine the rest of the sentence.